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pushed an old blind woman in front of a bus than this!"
    Kiki paused to consider the situation. It could very well be that Sarah Ann Duckworth had bipolar disorder. Oprah had done a whole show about it. Hmm. If this proved to be true, then Sarah Ann could hardly be an asset to Kiki's career.
    Beep.
    Oh, thank God for call-waiting. The perfect escape chute for unpleasant interruptions or boring conversations. "That's my other line, Sarah Ann. I'll have to call you back."
    Click.
    But before Kiki could get so much as the "H" in hello out, Suzi-Suzi was screaming bloody murder, then asking, "Are you dying? You must be dying. I would be so dying. At least it's not a bad picture, though. I mean, you look great."
    "What are you talking about?" Kiki demanded. And this time, she really had no idea.
    "You haven't seen it?"
    "Seen what?"
    "Oh, God," Suzi-Suzi said, her voice down an octave. "Uhyou shouldn't be alone when you see it. I'm coming over there. But whatever you do; don't go out and buy the New York Post . Promise me you won't. Promise !"
    "I promise," Kiki said earnestly. So the first thing she did as soon as Suzi-Suzi hung up was shove her feet into a pair of Uggs, toss on her Hello Kitty terry cloth robe, and race downstairs to the newsstand on the corner.
    From several feet away Kiki saw it. Almost instantly, her stomach dropped. And then a sense of personal doom settled somewhere in her gut and threatened to stay.
    HOME WRECKER!
    Those two words were stacked on the front page of the New York Post , each offending letter billboard big. To the immediate right was a photograph of Kiki between Tom Brock's legs, looking like she had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Lewinsky University.
    Kiki just stood there in a foggy tableau, as if watching the scene outside of herself. Slowly, she reached out for the tallest stack to touch one of the tabloids, if only to prove it real. And the smudge of newsprint that stained her fingertips provided the answer: Oh, hell, yes.
    She slapped down two dollars, grabbed a copy, and started back to her apartment as she read. The photo caption alone infuriated her: "Washed-up soap starlet Kiki Douglas makes a desperate play for Tom Brock, New York's very own young Sinatra." Kiki could feel a flush of red heat start up at her neck and move to her cheeks, which were burning. Washed-up soap starlet ? First of all, she was hardly washed up. Her career was merely in a period of transition. And what's this about a desperate play ? Please. Not that she was even trying to offer one, but the fact is that she gave a very good blow job. Any man should be quite happy to get one from her. Even Tom Brock!
    Ripping through the paper to get to the story, she found the rest of it a few turns over, basically a single column running down the page, accompanied by publicity shots of her (a nice one, actually; she was wearing a Pucci halter), Tom, and Kirsten. Not much there as far as information goes. It was all vague speculation about what might or might not be an affair. Pretty boring and pointless, actually. Even the most gullible moron would have thought so.
    Kiki continued to read. All of a sudden, she halted. How did they discover her real age? Damn those tabloid hacks! Now she couldn't go ahead with plans for her thirtieth birthday party. Still consumed with every image and syllable, she found her way back inside her apartment as if by muscle memory alone.
    The telephone blasted Kiki away from her private Mars. Like a zombie, she moved to answer. All she did was pick up. Not even an intake of breath.
    And Suzi-Suzi shouted, "I knew you would go down and grab the first paper you saw! I called Danni. She's on three-way. I think. I'm always screwing that up. Either hanging up on someone when I want them on the line, or not hanging up when I want to gossip about them. Danni, are you there?"
    "I'm here. Don't panic, Kiki," she offered soothingly. "The morning's scandal is the afternoon's fish paper."
    "And what's the